Tablet packaging devices are known (such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,506,462) which automatically dispense and package prescribed tablets in the storage concavities of a tray having storage concavities divided into seven rows and four columns. The tray is designed so that tablets packaged in accordance with a dosing frequency of four doses per day are stored in the respective storage concavities of one row and so that one week's worth of tablets can be stored in all seven rows.
In the conventional tablet packaging device described above, a scraper unit is provided on a belt conveyor for carrying the tray so as to be able to freely advance and retreat in the transverse direction of the conveyor. The tray is installed and carried so that the direction of the rows of the storage concavities faces the width direction of the conveyor and so that the direction of the columns faces the advancing direction of the conveyor. The scraper unit is provided with four compartments corresponding to the four storage concavities of each row of the tray, and a scraper (scraping instrument) is respectively provided in each compartment.
The scraper unit described above sequentially moves the bottom of a tablet discharge hopper to each of the four compartments so as to receive tablets, and in a state in which the tablets have been dispensed into all four of the compartments, the scraper unit advances over the conveyor so that each compartment coincides with an opening in the upper part of each of the four storage concavities of each row of the tray. A shutter of each compartment of the scraper unit is opened in a state in which there is vertical coincidence, and the tablets on the inside are simultaneously scraped out by the operation of the scraper and individually discharged into the four concavities of the tray.
The scraper unit described above repeats seven cycles of sequentially executing the reception of tablets into the four compartments, the opening and closing of the shutter, and the scraping of the tablets by the scraper. Meanwhile, the belt conveyor repeats seven cycles of advancing and stopping for each row of the tray, and the discharge and reception of tablets into the storage concavities are thus completed. Once tablets have been stored in all of the storage concavities, the tray is carried out by the belt conveyor and retrieved on the outside from the discharge part so as to complete the packaging process.